Virtual career fairs are one of the latest trends in EdTech. Here are 5 of many reasons to consider running a virtual career fair.
Virtual career fairs are one of the latest trends in EdTech. If you need a refresher on what they are, you can check out this article here.
It’s pretty straightforward why they would trend in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, but you might not have considered all the reasons people are taking light to virtual career fairs. Below, we consider 5 among the many reasons to consider running a virtual career fair this season.
Alternative to Cancelling
Due to COVID-19, many large events around the world have been cancelled. To name a few, the Olympics (postponed), SXSW, and sports leagues. It naturally follows that smaller events like career fairs, food shows, and music festivals get cancelled too.
That said, some events are important to not cancel. For example, career fairs are critical events that help students connect with potential employers to find jobs. In a damaged economic climate, career fairs are arguably more important than ever.
Virtual career fairs allow you to enable your students to network with potential employers and set themselves up for the next phase of life, without undergoing the risks of a global pandemic.
Possibly Lower Cost
Interestingly, some schools were looking into virtual career fairs before COVID-19. If you think about it, in many ways a virtual event should be easier to run than a physical event. To name a few reasons the event would be cheaper virtually:
- No need to coordinate an army of volunteers/chaperones
- No need to rent and set up a venue
- No need to discuss and manage difficult logistical issues like student check in, employer set up, booth availability, etc.
- Less cost for employers – don’t need to fly in, ship booth, use man hours
Can Double as a Regular Career Fair
Certain virtual career fair providers have solutions that can be set up as a virtual career fair, but can easily be transferred to a regular career fair app. This flexibility makes it so you can opt to run a virtual career fair in the fall, and easily use the same material in the spring, without having to set everything up all over again.
You can even change the type of fair (physical or virtual) last minute if you like, in the end a lot of the programming should be somewhat similar and a competent vendor should make it so that making the switch is as easy as possible.
Future-Proof, On Trend, and In-Demand
Virtual career fairs are part of the larger virtual spaces trend. It’s not an awful thing to bet on and something that will likely pick up speed with developments in VR technology. While it might not be a ubiquity today, departments that slowly familiarize themselves with these new technologies can reap benefits for the years to come.
Exclusive Functions not available for Physical Fairs
Virtual career fairs enable you to do certain things that wouldn’t be possible with a regular career fair. To name some things:
More Granular Analytics
With virtual fairs, because the event is run on a website, you can granularly track things like:
- Employers: How many students checked out their virtual booth
- Employers: The breakdown of students that checked out their virtual booth
- Organizers: Amount of Students that attended the Virtual Fair
- Organizers: Average Amount of Appointments a student made
- Organizers: How much “value” in bookings each employer was able to get from the fair
Longer Time Windows
Some centers opt to run week-long virtual events. It’s a lot more possible to accommodate longer time windows for virtual events as there’s no need to worry about costs for employers staying in the area, venues, etc.
Longer time windows enable more students to partake in the fair and also enable employers to get more value out of booking your career fair.
Resume Uploading, Push Notifications, and more
Solutions like Eventus offer additional features that you might not have considered. Consider requesting a demo here to learn more.
